A little more than a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the green light as F1's latest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from the ground up has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the season to be staged in the America, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and has a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now at over 400 and planned to attain the target of six hundred quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all tackling different aspects of the mission at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to people to take charge. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
